Litecoin

What is Litecoin?

Litecoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology, as defined on its official website. It was released in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, an ex-Google employee, who is still heading up the project today.

Litecoin uses a different cryptographic algorithm to Bitcoin. Compared to Bitcoin, it has a decreased block generation time and increased maximum number of coins. In other words, the transaction times are much faster and the fees are much lower. Litecoin is currently trading at approximately 100:1 ratio to Bitcoin (100/10000).

The future of Litecoin

Recently both Bitcoin and Litecoin implemented SegWit. Segregated Witness was a much-anticipated update and a proposed solution to the Bitcoin scalability problem. The update allows Litecoin to act as a testbed for running the Lightning Network. Should this be successful then the same will be applied to Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network will be on Litecoin!

The Litecoin devs are really excited to work with Lightning Labs on such an exciting technology. https://t.co/XGDp6XHRXV

The Lightning Network

The Lightning Network technology has to potential to introduce a brand new era for cryptocurrency in general. The technology would eliminate the need to wait for on-chain confirmations. This means that transactions will be lightning fast and the fees will be reduced even further. At the beginning of 2018, the Lightning Network reached 1,000 Mainnet Payment Channels. You can see a map of the network and follow it’s progress here.

To see a real-time LTC/USD, LTC/BTC or LTC/ETH price chart please click here.

Disclaimer: This information should not be interpreted as investment or trading advice. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be extremely volatile and you should always do your due diligence and research on the product, service and legal and regulatory requirements before deciding to invest. We do not take any responsibility for any possible losses you may incur.